Almost the exact thing happened to me. I was working at a cheap sushi restaurant and got food poisoning in the middle of my shift. I began vomiting over and over, about twice an hour. I was literally running in and out of the bathroom between taking orders because I couldn’t stop, I was so ill. What did my manager say when I asked if I could go home? He said no, we were short staffed because he’d already let a girl go home because she’d stayed up too late the night before doing cocaine. It took 4 hours from the point I started vomiting for him to finally let me leave, and he demanded I apologize to all my coworkers for “making them work harder”. Btw I didn’t even make it the 6 block walk home without vomiting in the gutter. I didn’t get fired right away, but I mysteriously stopped getting shifts about two weeks later despite being the oldest and most experienced server (at 20 years old, btw). Fuck the way restaurant workers are treated in this country.

catslightly:

Not surprised. I came down with the flu once when I was working at a cafe and they told me I couldn’t leave. When a customer complained that I was clearly ill, my manager just moved me to the kitchen so the customers couldn’t see me infecting them all.

acornprincess:

This reminds me of one of my roommates in undergrad who worked at the dining hall – She somehow got pink eye and tried to call out sick after going to the doctor, since, you know, pink eye is hella contagious. They said she couldn’t and that they would just keep her in the back on dishwashing duties so she would be “out of sight”…like, as long as the other students didn’t see her inflamed, seeping eye as they were being served their fucking turkey tetrazzini all would be well. Anyway, there was a subsequent MAJOR breakout of pink eye. Enough so that the President of the university had to send out a campus-wide email about it outlining tips/directions about what to do to prevent the spread and how to get treatment. Fucking ridiculous.

jennnnn:

I once worked super sick through my lunch shift and went to a minute clinic on break for a strep culture. Came back positive, with a dr’s note, and my boss sat and watched me call everyone off that evening to cover my shift. No one would so I sat and cried, feeling terrible, sick, and defeated, and shaking from my fever. Finally after watching me crumble he said go home. What a dick.

There are many many many more, in both the post and in the comments.*

We Americans have an awful attitude when it comes to wage-work, namely, that more is always better** and too much is never enough.

Madness.

~~~

*If you don’t want to feel terrible, stop after you read the “Strega Nona” comment. That one’s nice.

**Of course we also rebel against this puritanical sensibility by pretending that we’re busier than we are. Because busier is always better, natch.

But this one is really chapping my lips because it’s interfering with my attempts to instil new habits.

I’ve been in the (bad) habit of announcing changes ahead of my, ah, actually making those changes. I’m going to get out more! (No) Devote time to my new novel! (No) Wash the dishes every day! (No) Big or small, I say I’mma do things I’mma don’t do.

So I thought I’d try something else: Start with the doing rather than the saying. I wanted to bump up my running, so I added both timed-runs at the gym and mileage runs in the mornings before I teach.

I wanted to try, for the fourth time, to learn to play the guitar, so I unsheathed the guitar from its case, dug out the guitar stand, tuned that puppy up, and started, yet again, from the beginning of good ol’ Mel Bay. I want to see if I can take this far enough that I could, plausibly, tell people I play guitar; if I enjoyed it, I’d keep going, if not, I’d sell the guitar.

And the commitment with Gotham Rock Choir—that too.

Enough fuckin’ around, in other words. Until the fever fucked with those plans.

No running yesterday (which I probably could have managed, as the cold was still in its prelude stages), no GRC or guitar practice yesterday, no running today, although I did manage an abbreviated weight work-out at home. I doubt I’ll be running tomorrow morning, although I’m still on for (what will likely be) a (very slow) gym run on Friday.

So, okay, no tragedy, no reason to think I won’t be able to get back into that (still-shallow) groove I’ve been trying to create.

It started with a migraine, progressed to a cold, got bogged down in grading, and then was topped off by a a part-time job which is demanding to know why it’s not first in everything. And it ain’t over.

No, nothing about this is catastrophic, and I’m hardly the first person who has a boss who I both respect and want to throttle (C., for one, knows alllllllll about this), but dangnabbit, I reserve the right to bitch about ordinary irritations.

He’s home, three of his legs are shaved below the joint (paws unshaven: legs of an off-kilter coiffed poodle), he’s eating, he’s drinking, he’s eliminating what he’s eating and drinking, and he’s fighting me when I try to give him his three medications—all good signs.

Staff at VERG-South were very nice, not snitty about my fiscal inability to keep him in the hospital any longer, and quite complimentary to Mr. Jasper.

My particular kitty-boy, Jasper, is in the hospital, with a problem which particularly affects males. (My old cat Jazz died from this, although he was much older than Jasper. I swore then I’d never get another boy cat. So much for swearing.) The doc should be calling me shortly to let me know how the procedure (to unblock his ureter) went—I expect it went fine—and I’ll pick him up tomorrow.

Of course, he should be in the hospital for at least another day, but I can’t afford that. To be honest, I don’t know if I can afford the care he’s currently being given. If his bill comes in toward the low end of the estimate, we’re fine. If not. . . .

I have no idea how I’ll pay it.

And then, of course, there’s the after care, which I also have no idea how I’ll afford.

But he was crying and I was crying and as I asked C., what, I’m going to let him die because I can’t afford to keep him alive?

C. did do me the great favor of looking for 24h care and telling me about CareCredit. I qualified for it—it pays the vet and then I pay it—but not enough to cover all the costs. Had I known about this before, I might have been able to get him into the vet before it became a costly emergency.

[*Update* The vet just called. He came through fine, his kidneys are fine, and he’s awake and groggy. So yes I’m still hyperventilating about the money, but at least Jasper’s okay.]

So, if you have pets and not a lot of cash, get CareCredit before anything bad happens; then maybe you can afford to pay for the little bad before it turns into the big bad.

Like it did with Jasper.

_____

*Update2* I learned a bit more about low-cost vet care—which, again, had I known about sooner, I might have been able to prevent this. (Joyce at Safety Net/Pets for Life was very nice about this, however, saying that this might have happened anyway. Thanks Joyce!)

So, for those of you in the New York City area, there are two (more) options you should know about:

Safety Net/Pets for Life (ACC; updated site at Humane Society) at 917 468-2938. If you’re low-income or on public assistance, they can help you find vet care at a reduced price, as well as low-cost or free spaying and neutering. As I mentioned, I spoke to Joyce and she was very helpful.

Low-cost vet mobile. This hits the different boroughs on different days; the one in Brooklyn parks at the Animal Care and Control site at 2336 Linden Boulevard every Wednesday from 10-6. They do everything but spaying/neutering (another mobile van does that) and extended hospitalizations. Intake exam is $25, with additional costs for other services. It’s a walk-in clinic for the most part, with appointments for surgeries.

I don’t have a contact number for the vet mobile, but if you’re in another borough you could call Safety Net for locations and dates.

I had looked previously for low-cost vet care, but somehow in my searches I didn’t find any of these services. Yes, I found the low-cost spay/neuter mobiles, but as I wasn’t looking for those services, I didn’t click on those links; had I done so, I might have also discovered the regular vet mobiles. And I messed-up in not finding the Safety Net program. I don’t know what search terms I was using, but they were clearly the wrong ones.

Jasper’s care cost a fair amount of money, and, more importantly, a great deal of distress to him. Perhaps had I taken him in when the problem first hit, we might have been able to avoid this. Joyce tried to reassure me by saying, well, even a vet can’t necessarily prevent blockages, and he would have had to have been unblocked anyway.

Finally, even if you’re not in New York City, you might have a Safety Net/Pets for Life program in your area. The NYC one is apparently run through the Humane Society, but it also has a page on the Animal Care and Control page. Check your local animal care societies to see if its available near you. And get CareCredit (which doesn’t cost anything to apply for and keep it on hand), just in case.